Pamplona warms up for running of the bulls festival with sun, sangria... and saucy striptease

The sangria was flying everywhere as revellers in the city of Pamplona celebrated the first day of the world-famous San Fermin bull-running festival.

Tens of thousands of locals and tourists packed into the main Plaza del Ayuntamiento as the traditional shout of 'Viva San Fermin', was broadcast from a city hall balcony.

At 12.00pm precisely a firework, known as the chupinazo was set off to officially mark the start as the writhing mass of people dressed in white waved the traditional red handkerchiefs.

Olé: An enormous crowd in Pamplona celebrate the start of the city's world-famous bull-running festival

Seeing red: Thousands of people wave red scarfs as they cram into Pamplona's city hall square after the firing of a firecracker known as the 'chupinazo', which is set off to announce the start of the festival

The crowd, dressed in traditional red and white, salute the firing of the Chupinazo firework which marks the beginning of the festival

The nine-day festival, made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, is an alcohol and danger-fuelled event during which many people are seriously injured and sometimes killed.

Every morning of the festival a dozen or so animals are released from a holding pen and charge through the city streets on their way to the bull ring.

Each bull run takes around four minutes and involves between 2,000 and 3,500 people running alongside the animals while desperately trying to avoid being gored or trampled.

Every year between 200 and 300 people are injured. The vast majority are hurt after falling but some are trampled or gored by the bulls despite increased safety measures.

A band plays on as it slowly works its way through the hoards of revellers packing the city square

Wash-out: Ecstatic festival-goers are soaked with water thrown from a balcony. The first bull run will start at 8.00am tomorrow

A man leaps into the crowd form a fountain and a girl, riding piggyback, is soaked with sangria as she gets into the festival spirit

Head over heels: A festival goer jumps from a fountain to be caught by the crowd during celebrations to mark the start of the festival

Two years ago a bull gored a 27-year-old Spanish man to death, piercing his neck, heart and lungs with its horns in front of the hordes of tourists.

In the evening, bulls killed in the ring are served up to hungry festival-goers in the city's restaurants.

This year organisers have launched a free iPhone app in English to help revellers to assess the chances that they will emerge from the festival unharmed.

It asks users about their behaviour at the festival, including how much they have had to drink and how many hours of sleep they have received.

Danger: A man is flipped over by a fighting bull during last year's celebrations. The first bull run of 2011 will take place at 8.00am on Thursday morning

dust storm

engulfs Phoenix

'We heard from a lot of people who lived here for a number of storms

and this was the worst they'd seen,' meteorologist says

PHOENIX — A dust storm up to 50 miles wide and a mile high descended on the Phoenix area on Tuesday night, grounding flights, forcing drivers to stop and causing thousands of power outages.

Towering over skyscrapers and grounding flights, the wall of dust swept
across the desert from the south at around nightfall, blanketing
downtown Phoenix.

The National Weather Service said strong winds with gusts of more
than 60 miles per hour moved the dust cloud northwest through Phoenix
and the cities of Avondale, Tempe and Scottsdale.

More than a dozen communities in the area also were placed under a
severe thunderstorm watch.

Hundreds seek help Phoenix's fire department received 720 emergency
phone calls during the dust storm and fire crews handled over 320
incidents during the same time period, NBC News reported.

He said that before bearing down on the Phoenix valley, radar data showed
the storm's wall of dust had reached as high as 8,000 to 10,000 feet
(nearly two miles).The dust cloud had originated in an afternoon storm in
the Tucson area before moving north across the desert, said National
Weather Service meteorologist Paul Iniguez.

Once it neared the valley, the cloud had fallen to some 5,000 feet
(just under a mile), according to the weather service.

"This was pretty significant," Iniguez said. "We heard from a lot of people
who lived here for a number of storms and this was the worst they'd seen."

The strong winds toppled trees and some 8,000 Salt River Project utility
customers were left without power, KNXV-TV reported late Tuesday.

'Grit in your teeth' The Arizona Republic reported winds also downed
live wires in Tempe that sparked a fire at a busy intersection. Firefighters
later extinguished the blaze.

"The grit in your teeth right now ... I just hear crunching," she added.
"It is amazing (the storm). It's the most amazing thing I have ever felt in my life."

Joshua Lott / Reuters

Motorists drive along 16th Street in Phoeniz, Ariz., during a dust storm on Tuesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said on its website that because of
low visibility in the area, no Phoenix-bound flights were allowed to leaveLasVegas or Los Angeles airports until 9 p.m. PT Tuesday
(12 a.m. ET Wednesday).

Flights at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International airport were also grounded
for about 45 minutes until about 8:55 p.m. PT, NBC News said.

A Sky Harbor spokesperson told NBC News that no Sky Harbor flights
needed to be diverted to other airports.

One flight that was supposed to fly into the smaller Mesa Gateway
airport was diverted to Phoenix.

The spokesperson said that conditions outside appeared to be back to
normal, with much of the dust settled.

The storm was part of the Arizona monsoon season, which typically starts
in mid-June and lasts through Sept. 30.

The infectious Facebook 'planking' craze looks to be gathering pace, as even the animal kingdom's now joining in - thanks to this cute little squirrel captured by a wildlife photographer.

Eagle-eyed snapper Joanne Williams set out to capture the quirky side of wildlife behaviour - and got more than she bargained for when the on-trend nut-gatherer showed he was right up to speed with social media.

The 'plank' would have gone unnoticed were it not for Ms Williams, who says she spontaneously hits the trigger of her camera hoping to catch the animals out.

'Very often I shoot spontaneously and quickly with little fore-thought, as most of the time my subjects move at great speed and the action would be over if I stopped to think why or if I should I take it,' the Florida-based photographer said.

'But there is one common thread in a lot of my work, which is my deliberate act of 'humanising' much of what I see - usually with a great deal of humour associated with the whole scene.

'I often recognise the conduct of some wildlife critter as similar to that of a relative, friend, or business associate - even a politician or movie star.'

Ms Williams' other work includes a bird checking himself out in a car's rear view mirror, a monkey making a rude gesture at the camera, and an owl looking mighty confused by turning its head upside down.

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So much news today is dull, depressing, controversial. It's almost impossible to watch news without hearing story after story of war, terror, killing, destruction, government, corruption, etc. I come across weird and wonderful news items as I scan the worlds press that put a smile on ones face or distract one from all the doom and gloom. These are the stories that will make up "The Quirky Globe". If you have any reactions to articles please leave a comment.... it may encourage debate. Pass this site on to your friends who are also fed up with mainstream news and become a follower. Enjoy and smile.